[nikos59]

Well, I am a great Vugraph fan and I want to say that I
strongly disagree with almost everything the original
poster has written (except the assessment of Fred's commentating
skills, obviously). Some transmissions during the last two months
like the Polish trials-liga finals were a treat to watch, partly because
of the high quality of commentating.

I like all the instances where the "locals" can provide insights about the players (and they sometimes can predict with astonishing accuracy their decisions) I like their chatting in the local language. (Okay, I can understand several languages besides English).

I don't mind about the occasional beer (or other) joke and apparently the original poster cannot realize how much of empty time there is to be filled during a Vugraph, where the players may spend long minutes on what is a boring board, flat as a pancake. In these instances, I (for one)
very much prefer some witticism than some arcane analysis (if North underleads his ace and this and that then declarer may be denied his overtrick) that tries to instil interest to a board that by definition has none.

The other day I was perusing my chat log file where commentating during Vugraphs is logged and it occurred to me that some witticisms,
especially of David Burn are quite entertaining indeed; approaching
in quality the "Kaplan nuggets" one might say -but the original poster
would probably disagree with Kaplan witticisms as well.

My hunch is that the original poster's reaction is probably due to the
fact that he can no longer impart his pearls of wisdom on innocent
commentators.

n.

[fred]

Here are my thoughts on the subject:

- Reading this thread (and the e-mail that I sometimes receive
on this subject) is very helpful. It is hard for the commentators
to know what the audience wants unless they tell us.

- Nice that everyone seems to like me as a commenator (thanks!)
but don't be shy! If there are ways that you think I can improve
let me know. I don't want to be immune from criticism just because
I am involved in Bridge Base Inc.

- I would like to be available as a commentator mroe often, but
the explosion growth of our site and my bridge schedule have
placed some pretty serious restrictions on my time. I won't be
available for the next 6 days, for example, because I have to
play in a ACBL Regional tournament (believe me, I would rather
stay home and be a commentator).

- I hope other commentators read this thread, but I am not
comfortable about the idea of sending out an e-mail to all of
our commentators to suggest this (or to create a "style guide"
for all commentators to read). The reason is that, in my view,
the people who volunteer to be commentators are doing us a
great favor and some of them are considerably more experienced
as players, journalists, and/or commentators than I am. I do not
want to tell them how I think they should do the "jobs" that they
are graciously volunteering for.

- Roland Wald (walddk) does a great job. Probably many people
do not realize how hard he works (as a volunteer) or the kind
of abuse he sometimes has to deal with (through no fault of
his own). Roland and I talk about commentatary issues on
semi-regular basis. If you want to see changes in commentary,
he is the best man to get in touch with. You will find that he is
very loyal to his dedicated team of volunteers, but he is also
open-minded in terms of possible improvements. I am not
going to post his e-mail address here, but it is usually easy
to find Roland on BBO (he is online a lot).

- It is my hope that eventually we will be able to pay people
like Roland and our commentators (vugraph will remain free,
however - don't worry about that). If and when that time comes
we will be in a much better position to select the commentators
that people like the most.

- It is likely that the software will eventually contain a facility
whereby people can select the commentator(s), level of
commentary, and language(s) they want. Don't hold your
breath waiting for this, but it will happen eventually.

- I personally think that almost all of our regular commentators
do a super job. For sure some of them are more serious than
others, some are better analysts than others, and some are
beter than others when it comes to catering to the "average
viewer". In my view this is a good thing. It is obvious from
reading this thread that different people have different ideas on
what makes for good commentators. If I do not like the way that
a given commentator is working out (this doesn't happen very
often) I talk to Roland about it.

- If you want to say some negative things about a particular
commentator, I would prefer that you do not do so in a
public forum (but you hereby have permission to rip me to
shreads in forums if you want!). Feel free to send me e-mail
on this subject (fred@bridgebase.com). I will forward to Roland
if I think it is appropriate (unless you specifically do not want
me to do so for some reason).

Thanks again for your feedback.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Chamaco]

nikos59, on Jun 21 2004, 10:07 PM, said:

My hunch is that the original poster's reaction is probably due to the
fact that he can no longer impart his pearls of wisdom on innocent
commentators.

Nikos,
I respect your opinion, and I am glad you liked what you saw on the Vugraph shows you looked at.

It is quite possible that we did not watch the same vugraph shows (icertainly was not watching those show you mentioned).

Just one point about myself and the commentators: I am aware of my low skill level and would never ever try to suggest any pearl of wisdom to the commentators.

My regret is not being able to ask questions and clarifications.

I hope my position is clear now, and I am glad to see that a debate has come out of this thread: in every situation I try to see the glass half full, and my position is that it is interesting to hear from the audience about their different interest in the Vugraph comments.

Finally, let me present my apologies to anyone may have found my post irritating.
It was not the intention of the post.
Yet the intention of the post was only to communicate the *thoughts* on the matter (not *requirements*, since this is a free service and I am thankful for it), knowing that some other people had similar position on this - while obviously others disagree.

I still think it was right to communicate this. Whether I choose or not the best form to do it, I cannot tell.

Thanks all !

[rona_]

nikos59, on Jun 22 2004, 01:07 AM, said:

The other day I was perusing my chat log file where commentating during Vugraphs is logged and it occurred to me that some witticisms,
especially of David Burn are quite entertaining indeed; approaching
in quality the "Kaplan nuggets" one might say -but the original poster
would probably disagree with Kaplan witticisms as well.

My hunch is that the original poster's reaction is probably due to the
fact that he can no longer impart his pearls of wisdom on innocent
commentators.

n.

[QUOTE] I find the above statements offensive. If I were Chamaco I would not have responded so politely. Why has Nikos's post not been deleted? I have seen less offensive posts deleted .

[nikos59]

[quote name='rona_' date='Jun 22 2004, 07:16 PM'] [quote name='nikos59' date='Jun 22 2004, 01:07 AM']

The other day I was perusing my chat log file where commentating during Vugraphs is logged and it occurred to me that some witticisms,
especially of David Burn are quite entertaining indeed; approaching
in quality the "Kaplan nuggets" one might say -but the original poster
would probably disagree with Kaplan witticisms as well.

My hunch is that the original poster's reaction is probably due to the
fact that he can no longer impart his pearls of wisdom on innocent
commentators.

n.[/quote]
[QUOTE] I find the above statements offensive. If I were Chamaco I would not have responded so politely. Why has Nikos's post not been deleted? I have seen less offensive posts deleted . [/quote]
What part of my post is deemed offensive? That of David Bird
being quite entertaining? Or the one about my hunch re the original
poster's reaction? If the latter, Chamaco himself has already
given a quite decent reply.

However, it seems to me a bit strange that Rona hadn't found
offensive this previous pearl of wisdom in the same thread:
<<In the match france against someone else, might well have been italy, I got...err... nerved of the commentators of having no idea of bridge nor the real world.>> But perhaps his thirst for censuring opinions is selective.

ns

[Rain]

Quote

My hunch is that the original poster's reaction is probably due to the
fact that he can no longer impart his pearls of wisdom on innocent
commentators.

Chamaco was being nice. I found this offensive too, and was contemplating deleting/editing. Kind of past the point though.


Rain

[inquiry]

Let me see if I can address the censorship (and why it wasn't applied) questions raised here.

First, to nikos's point about Chamaco's statement about "In the match france against someone else, might well have been italy, I got...err... nerved of the commentators of having no idea of bridge nor the real world..

Here Chamaco did not name names. Sure, maybe that match had only one or two commentators (I have no idea), and maybe someone could figure out who he was talking about. However, clearly such comments will not raise the ire of anyone nor, in general humilate anyone. And besides, we all know that such statements are untrue, since commentators are handpicked because of their bridge experience in the real world.

Next to Rona's comment about why nikos' comment, "My hunch is that the original poster's reaction is probably due to the fact that he can no longer impart his pearls of wisdom on innocent commentators."

This is a different kettle of fish. We all know who nikos was talking about, it was Chamaco. If I had seen that comment BEFORE Chamaco replied to it, I would have deleted it from Nikos post. The reason to do so, is to prevent potential battles (flame wars). However, one can't always be here reading the post, and Chamaco's reply was more than adequate, using nikos's statement to clarify his position. So nikos's statement lead to an improvement in the thread rather than to any immediate problems. Therefore I did not edit the original post. If on the other hand, Chamaco had responded in a different way to the the comment, both his response and nikos's comments would have been removed.

Now, as you can see, my fellow moderator (rain), has stepped in and made a comment. She agrees that nikos's comments were "rude" and she considered taking some action. But even then, it wasn't clear to her that action needed to be taken ("was contemplating ") because this is not quite a clear cut case needing censorship.

Ben

[fred]

Ben - I think you and Rain are doing a great job.

Thanks

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[anssibragge]

Please, do not credit Chamaco with partly offensive material that I posted.

He did not talk about the France-Italian match, it was me.

abe

[Chamaco]

inquiry, on Jun 24 2004, 04:20 PM, said:

Let me see if I can address the censorship (and why it wasn't applied) questions raised here.

First, to nikos's point about Chamaco's statement about "In the match france against someone else, might well have been italy, I got...err... nerved of the commentators of having no idea of bridge nor the real world..

Here Chamaco did not name names.

I did not write that statement.
It was written by a different poster after my post.
--------------------


Oh ok, I just saw ansibragge mentioned this and I thank him.

[cherdano]

I am grateful to all the commentators donating their time (and everyone else involved in the Vuegraphs; esp. to Roland Wald for organizing the commentators team, and to Fred for his lobbying to get Vuegraphs be free when they were still restricted to pay sites most of the time -- I really think this is a big success for bridge).

I think the vuegraph comments are really good overall, but I also think that they could be better. This is not criticism, but I assume that the commentators are themselves interested in getting the most out of the time they donate to promoting bridge.

I think most commentators have now disabled private chat (which I can understand very well), which means there is very little feedback to the commentators. When commentators were still accepting private messages, I would sometimes try to ask them bridge questions, not expecting any personal reply, but to try to give them a hint what might be interesting to talk about. Often they would pick this up and discuss it in the public chat. I suppose a lot of stuff seems obvious to them, and they won't see that there is an issue to explain to us bridge mortals.

Two points:
1. Not that the cokes and stuff aren't fun, but I would really encourage the commentators to talk about technical bridge aspects. Even if the one team is up by 20 IMPs, I am still interested to hear how declarer should play the trump suit in his rock solid "boring" 4S to maximize the chances for an overtrick. And if every line will work because trumps split 2-2 I am still interested in how declarer SHOULD play the contract. Etc. We are watching the vuegraphs because we are interested in bridge after all, don't assume we will be bored by technical aspects.

2. Why not enable public chat for one or two non-experts every session? Their "job" would be to ask questions that they would think are interesting to the audience. They could also remain open to private chat and relay interesting questions other people have. Since they don't have to analyze the hand at the same time, they should have less problems to cope with a flood of incoming messages. I would certainly volunteer to take this job occasionally when I am watching anyway.

Others have proposed technical solutions, but this one could be used immediately.

[Chamaco]

Cherdano has expressed even better than myself my overall feelings and ideas.
I agree 100% with this post.

[uday]

The other day, the Senior trials popped into being with only a very little advance notice.
While scrambling for commentators, I thought i'd try it myself, since it seemed kind of easy, and I'm not a terrible analyst when all 52 cards are visible.

All I'll say now is that it is not as easy as it looks, not even close. I'm not saying this to squelch criticism, just making an observation. I felt a lot of pressure to make clever remarks the moment 52 cards popped into view, i had no idea what systems they were playing, I had no idea whether to address my remarks to intermediates or advanced players. Plus, it was kind of scary, a little like real "pubic speaking"

Where can we go to learn how to do online commentary well?

[Chamaco]

uday, on Jun 25 2004, 06:43 PM, said:

The other day, the Senior trials popped into being with only a very little advance notice.
While scrambling for commentators, I thought i'd try it myself, since it seemed kind of easy, and I'm not a terrible analyst when all 52 cards are visible.

All I'll say now is that it is not as easy as it looks, not even close.   I'm not saying this to squelch criticism, just making an observation.  I felt a lot of pressure to make clever remarks the moment 52 cards popped into view, i had no idea what systems they were playing, I had no idea whether to address my remarks to intermediates or advanced players.   Plus, it was kind of scary, a little like real "pubic speaking"

Where can we go to learn how to do online commentary well?

Uday, I do understand your point.

About the issue you mention I'll just say that:
I prefer anyone (even a non-expert) who at least tries an analysis of the hand, even if the analysis is wrong, to an expert who gets bored about the hand and talks of something else (or only superficially of the hand).

In my opinion anyone who tries hard to do his best deserves praise, regardless of the technical quality of the result.

On the other hand, being an expert does not necessarily mean being an experienced commentator: indeed, not every expert may have in mind what the audience like to hear or not.

These suggestions should be viewed - in my opinion - just as feedback, so that every commentator can see what some BBO players would like to hear.
Then, of course, they will decide on their own how to handle the chronicle.

[nikos59]

Well said, Uday -and perhaps we would add the fact
that very many commentators are not using their
mother tongue when commentating, which makes
the task appreciably more difficult.

Still, there are always some esteemed users who
will insist that some commentators have no idea
of bridge and of the real world in general. Perhaps
BBO would consider offering to them the chance
to commentate -I am sure that we would all get
a good laugh.
n

[Chamaco]

nikos59, on Jun 25 2004, 07:46 PM, said:

Still, there are always some esteemed users who
will insist that some commentators have no idea
of bridge and of the real world in general.

I hope you do not refer to myself.
But as usual, I take your posts as an occasion to clarify my ideas rather than start unpleasant discussions:

I never said the commentators have no idea of bridge.
I would rather say that - for me - the opposite is frustrating : when a commentator who indeed has good technical skill starts to talk of non technical issues neglecting details that would be of interest to players like me.

I assume from your posts that you did not happen to watch vugraphs with such type of comments, but I guarantee you it happened to me.

[cherdano]

Another point: I wonder whether it is really worth doing 6-8 tables of vuegraph at the same time. As I can watch only one at the time, I would rather have all of the excellent commentators concentrated on the table I watch :-) (or, heaven, Roland could even give them a few more breaks to take a rest during a long tourney ).
The only reason I can see for doing more tables at a time are:
1) Having both tables of a team match being shown means we can get detailed comparisons, which is both fun and interesting.
2) When some of the tables provide commentary in a different language.
3) So that a spectator can choose to watch the players he personally finds most interesting/he is rallying for/play for his countries.

I think we all like 1), but personally I don't care about 2) (although I am not a native English speaker) and 3). If everybody thought like me, two tables at a time plus one or two for each additional language (until the software can separate the chat according to language) would be enough.

What do others think about that?

[Cascade]

I think you underestimate the parochial natural of the users. There are many many people who want to watch their own country play.

I field many questions like "When are Turkey on vugraph?", "Is the Sweden Demark game on tonight?" etc etc

[Chamaco]

i agree with cascade.
There are so many communities on BBO with different interests.
Diversity is a plus

[Gerardo]

I like Cherdano's idea, of havink a "link" between commentators and audience.
Yellows can currently do this, but it would be a valuable position on itself, if taken by right person.
But think it would be better if said link could adress all commentators privately, and denied talking to audience. Maybe a commentator can take the role, but better to keep the abilities separate.

(I know, directed to audience a few comments before, by mistake. Will happen again, I'm sure). So the less people with that ability, the better.

Can even introduce new things, which commentators didn't see yet, from him/herself, or from the audience. (happened before, will happen again, albeit rarely)